Ho'omaika'i (To Be Thankful)
by easytodancewith
Summary: Danny/Steve. As the Hookman's well-aimed shots ricochet off the walls around him, Danny senses the distinct possibility of death in his near future - but Steve's got everything under control. The scenario and most of the dialogue in the first scene come straight from "Hawaii Five-0" 3x15; the rest is my take on what happened next.


As the sniper's well-aimed shots ricochet off the walls around him, Danny senses the distinct possibility of death in his near future - a feeling with which he's become all too familiar since joining Five-0.

"Hey!" he yells at Steve, raising his voice to be heard over the hail of bullets. "What are we doing?"

"You're not doing anything," Steve asserts firmly. He's crouched beside the Camaro with an almost comically large gun in his hands - and why can't he use his own car as a shield, for once? "I'm gonna take the car and draw Stoner's fire. When Kono gets a shot, she's gonna take it, OK?"

It almost sounds reasonable, the way Steve says it. Like, hey, no problem, he's just gotta do this one small thing and then they'll all head to Kamekona's for shrimp before the sun sets.

Danny takes a deep, resigned breath. He knows two things at this juncture: 1) This is pretty much a suicide mission, and 2) There's no way Steve will agree to change the plan - but Danny's gonna try to reason with him anyway.

"Steve, he's a sniper, OK?" (Danny's favorite apostle is Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.) "You're not gonna make it to the end of the block."

Steve leaps out from behind the Camaro, fires a volley of bullets in Stoner's direction and slides into the driver's seat, showing no sign whatsoever that he heard even a _syllable_ of what Danny said to him.

"Oh, yeah, don't listen to me!" Danny yells as the barrage from the rooftop goes into double time. "Don't listen to reason! Be you! It's very _you_ of you!"

The Camaro peels away from the curb with a screech of tires and Danny runs into the street without thinking about it, trying his damnedest to take out Stoner before Stoner takes out Steve. It's Kono who triumphs, though - one well-aimed shot and the threat is neutralized, Stoner's lifeless form pitching forward off the rooftop, the gunfire stopping as suddenly as it began. The sniper's body hits an awning with a sickening thud before coming to rest on the asphalt, his gun landing unceremoniously nearby. Danny heads toward the body, conscious of Steve slamming the door of the Camaro and doubling back from whence he came.

"What was that?" Steve demands, hands spread, posture incredulous. Danny glances at him quizzically. "What are you, Scarface? What were you thinking?"

Danny forgot that Steve's the only one allowed to make action-movie choices in his everyday life.

"I don't know, I guess I misinterpreted your game plan - which, for the record, was seriously flawed."

Chin and Kono are standing beside them now, Stoner's body a macabre centerpiece. Neither says a word; they've seen these standoffs enough times to know better.

Infuriatingly, the annoyance on Steve's face softens, and although Danny's not exactly sure what's coming, he knows he's not gonna like it.

"You were worried about me," Steve says fondly. There's just a hint of a smile on his face.

"Worried?" Danny repeats in disbelief. "No. No, I was worried about my car."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Chin smirk.

"I'm touched," Steve declares, and his faint smile blossoms into a full-on shit-eating grin that makes Danny's trigger finger itch.

"Yeah, you're touched. You're touched in the _head_ ," Danny shoots back hotly. "You are touched by something that I cannot explain. And so you know, there are a lot of things on this planet that I am worried about. Losing you in a combat situation is not one of them, OK?"

He stalks off to inspect the damage to the Camaro, wondering again why it's his car that always ends up worse for wear. Chin has a _bike_ , for God's sake. Those things are coffins on wheels.

 **xXx**

Danny's driving Steve home - and marveling at the fact that the Commander actually let him sit behind the wheel of his own vehicle for once - when Steve decides to say something asinine, which isn't out of character at all.

"You adore me," the other man says confidently, as if he's stating a goddamn fact. Danny wonders whether everything Steve does is for the express purpose of getting under his skin, or if the effect is just a happy coincidence.

"I do _not_ adore you," Danny tells him definitively. "I have many, _many_ strong emotions about you, including but not limited to rage and frustration, but adoration is not on that list, my friend. It's not even on the waiting list for the list. It is on precisely _zero_ lists because I refuse to exert any more time and energy worrying about when your suicidal stunts will finally catch up to you and, more to the point, who else you'll take out in the process."

Steve's silent for a couple of moments, and Danny's beginning to regret the harshness of his words when the other man says triumphantly, "So you _were_ worried about me."

Danny grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.

 **xXx**

"No, seriously."

They're sitting side by side on mismatched wooden chairs in Steve's backyard, gazing out at the ocean, and Steve still won't let it go.

"You ran out into the street to create a diversion to my diversion, right? Because you thought Stoner was gonna take me out?"

Danny takes a resolute swig of beer and refuses to dignify him with an answer.

"You ever stop to think about why I wanted him to come after me in the first place?" Steve continues relentlessly. He never could take a hint.

"To give Kono the shot," Danny grunts, because sometimes the only way to get his partner to shut up is to play ball.

"To give Kono the shot," Steve concedes, "and to get him away from her. And from Chin. And from you. With leadership comes, uh..." He gestures with his beer bottle. "With great leadership comes great responsibility."

Danny can't resist correcting him. "It's power."

"Excuse me?"

"With great power comes great responsibility." Danny lets the weight of the words stand alone for a moment, then follows up with, "It's _Spider-Man_."

Steve shrugs. "However it goes, my point stands."

Did Danny mention that he hates him? Because he hates him.

"Uh, what point would that be? That you reserve the right to run into sniper fire whenever you damn well please just because you happen to be the team leader?"

Steve considers this. "Pretty much."

"Uh-huh." Danny's quiet for a few seconds, watching a wave break on the short stretch of sand in front of them. "You realize that's bullshit, right?"

"Depends on your perspective."

"Oh, OK. Well, mine is the _sane_ perspective, and yours is the perspective of someone who's touched in the head. Does that help?"

Steve leans back in his chair. "You're welcome."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"For saving your life - you're welcome."

"Oh, _my_ life?" Danny honestly can't believe the shit that comes out of Steve's mouth sometimes. "You think you saved _my_ life today? I was the diversion to your diversion! I saved _your_ life, you animal!"

For some profoundly baffling reason, Steve smirks at him. "Well, then, thank you."

"...For saving your life?" Danny clarifies incredulously. Surely Steve McGarrett won't let him get away with that one so easily.

"For worrying about me. Like I said earlier, I'm touched."

Danny can't believe they're having this conversation again.

"And like _I_ said earlier…" he begins, but Steve's impervious megawatt grin cuts him off without the other man making so much as a sound. "You know what, let's just sit here and appreciate that we're alive right now, despite your best efforts to the contrary."

Steve's eyes sparkle. "I'll drink to that."


End file.
